


Research Tools for Writers

by hafren



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-13
Updated: 2009-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-04 09:42:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hafren/pseuds/hafren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cally and Jenna polish their slash-writing skills</p>
            </blockquote>





	Research Tools for Writers

Jenna stared at the text on her palmtop and absently chewed a finger. In the time of the New Calendar, writers all had bitten nails and chewed hands. They could not know, never having seen such an artefact, that their behaviour was down to an atavistic craving to munch the end of a pencil. She shook her head. "Cally?"

"Mm?" Cally'd been reading, scrolling down with parted lips and widening eyes that suggested something fairly hot on the screen. But she dragged herself nobly away from it; writers have to help each other. "Got a problem?"

"Well... you know all those scenes where the guy on the bottom feels the hot wet spurts of euphemism inside him?"

"Yes?"

"Well, how can he? I mean, have you ever felt hot wet spurts of anything?"

Cally leaned back. "No, now you come to mention it. Movement, yes, but never that. You know they've finished when they stop making a noise and collapse on top of you."

"So are men different? Do they feel it differently, or is it just sloppy writing?"

"I don't know. It happens in all the stories, though."

"Damn," Jenna said, "it's so frustrating having to guess all this stuff. I wish I could be a man for a day, just to do the research."

"That'd be one exhausting day, then."

They laughed companionably, transgressively. They'd been writing slash on the same interplanetary mailing list for about a year now, though it had been a few months before Cally said hesitantly, "Jenna... are you Anne Bonney?"

"Yep. And you're Libertina, right?"

Ever since they'd guessed, they had been beta-reading for each other, sharing their contrasting skills. Cally had trouble with dialogue. On Auron, as she explained, courtship and post-coital chat didn't really happen, since each party knew what the other was thinking anyhow. As a result, the heroes of her early stories had tended to be all over, and into, each other without a by-your-leave or, sometimes, an introduction. Jenna's writing had started out just the opposite; her characters could court each other for a good six pages before any business ensued.

"You're slowing the action down too much," Cally had protested.

"Ah, I know. It's wish-fulfilment. The men I knew, their idea of a romantic overture was "Fancy a quick one?"

They'd helped each other a lot, Jenna thought, looking back at her palmtop and erasing three paragraphs of chat with hardly a twinge of regret. It was good stuff, but it could always show up elsewhere to lighten one of Cally's monosyllabic encounters.

"What are you going to do about the hot wet spurts?" Cally asked.

"Leave it out," Jenna said decisively. "I won't use it if I'm not sure."

Cally sighed. "I know what you mean. Sometimes I wish - not to be a man exactly but to have a... a thingy." (When not writing explicit slash, Cally was oddly prissy with language.) "Just for a day, so I'd know how one worked. I've never been sure, even when I've been trying to make one work."

"Tell me about it." Jenna grimaced, recalling oral sex with Tarvin the pirate. God, she'd enjoyed double-crossing him on Liberator, getting her own back for what felt like hours of kneeling, getting cramp in the oddest places, waiting for something to happen. He only spoke to complain that she wasn't doing it right. "You aren't holding it tight enough."

And she had dragged her mind back from the quadratic equation she'd been using to stay awake, and snapped, ""I can't grip any tighter!"

"Well, move your tongue more, then. Do something."

"How the hell do I know what it wants? It isn't like I've got one. You'd be better asking one of the lads."

At which he'd stalked off, mortally offended, and she hadn't seen him for hours. Only now, looking back, did it occur to her that he might have taken her advice. She grinned, and began plotting the story.

Cally was still pondering research. "Mind you, they do get it right a lot of the time. You can tell, when it works in RL. I've got some damn good ideas off that list. Avon thinks they all come from ancient Auron lore. He has an increasing respect for the wisdom of my people."

Jenna laughed. "Yeah, Blake puts my inventiveness down to my chequered past. That's a hoot. Tarvin's imagination was limited to Two Places To Put It." Well, maybe three, she amended, seeing how her story was shaping up. But the olive-skinned young Amagon currently in receipt of his captain's onscreen attention wouldn't be enjoying it any more than she had. She considered letting him use her technique of doing mental arithmetic to stave off boredom and decided it was too far-fetched for fiction.

Cally finished the story she was reading and started skimming others, looking for the particular blend of warrior chivalry and taciturn screwing she favoured. "Hey, I haven't seen this pseud before." She clicked, then gasped softly and turned rose-pink.

"What is it?" Jenna asked eagerly. Cally handed her the screen.

"Oh, Liberator slash. Well, there's enough of that around, bound to be. We're famous, y'know."

"I'm not sure about RPS," Cally murmured, "even when I don't know the people. When I do... it's quite disturbing."

"Just another possibility."

Cally laughed shakily. "Somehow I don't think Blake and Avon would say that, if they saw it."

"Ah, don't tell me you haven't fantasised those two? I'm damn sure I have, when I've been with Blake. There've been times, specially when I'd been reading this stuff, I could only climax by fantasising I was Avon."

"That is seriously weird."

"You've never done anything like that, when you've been with Avon?"

Cally was too honest for her own comfort. She said reluctantly, "I have sometimes fantasised being physically stronger than him, controlling him... being inside him somehow."

"Well, there you are, how else can you do it? What it is to be a writer."

The tone was ever so slightly too light. Cally glanced sharply at Jenna, then back to the screen. "Hell, this is yours! It's got your style all over it, the way they talk about it for ages instead of getting on with it."

"No, that's them, honest... but yeah, it's mine. Where's the harm?"

"Just don't write it anywhere they might find it."

"I won't. We wouldn't want to fall out with them and lose the only research tools we've got."

***

Avon collapsed across the bed, drained and breathless, and let Cally smooth the damp hair back from his brow. When he could speak, he said, "You get better at this all the time. Though now and then...". His voice trailed off.

"Now and then what? What could I be doing better? Tell me; I want to get it right."

He was touched. "I wouldn't worry. Physically the sensation leaves nothing to be desired; it's just sometimes I have this feeling your mind is elsewhere. Detached, somehow. It's probably an Auron thing. You must miss being able to communicate mentally with your partner." He smiled reassurance and she returned it, a little guiltily. She didn't like telling less than the truth, but "No, actually it's a writer thing; I was jotting it all down mentally until I could get to my palmtop" would be unlikely post-coital chat even in one of Jenna's scenarios.

He was still hard; she stroked him gently and felt him tense. "What does that feel like, right afterwards?"

"Sensitive. It... would rather you didn't touch it, until it's back to normal. Actually" - he twisted away from the lips that were tugging at his nipple - "so would that. I'm not saying you couldn't get me excited again, but that's rather a dread word for a man at this point. Again, I mean."

"Yes, that's the biggest difference, isn't it?" Cally mused. She was more than ready for Round Two, herself. "It's sad for men, really."

"There are compensations."

"Tell me about them."

***

She was checking stores in the medical unit when she heard him come in. "Hello. I haven't seen you in hours. Been busy?"

"You could say that." There was an edge in his voice; she turned in alarm. "What's wrong?"

"Some time ago, not long after you first came, in fact, you manifested a touching concern for knowledge about the workings of the forward detector links. "I'm interested in your work", I think, was the phrase. Shortly after, we lost all forward vision."

Cally was stung. "I couldn't help that! My mind was being controlled!"

"Quite. My point was that I have developed a certain sense for when someone wants me for something other than my body."

He knew, she thought, but how? Like Jenna, she always kept her palmtop safe. Then she remembered.

"Orac. You used Orac to access my files!"

"Come now, did I not have some right? Occasionally in the past I have assisted researchers, but they all had the courtesy to ask my consent. And they generally gave me copies of their findings."

"Avon, I won't deny I was taking mental notes. But it wasn't easy, and believe me, that was never all it was about. I have always been interested in you for yourself."

He looked at her a while, then nodded. "I believe you."

"Were you shocked? By my 'findings?'"

He sat down and took a long breath. "I was surprised. Even more so, when I recognised Jenna's pseudonym and romantic fancies. So I followed the suggestions on the list and looked up some articles on the subject. And it has, if I may say so, generated some of the most pontificating academic waffle I have ever read. But there was enough lucid discussion for me to gain some idea of what the attraction might be for the readers and writers. And I could not help but be impressed by their -your- determination to get the facts right." His eyes glinted a little and she realised with relief that he was more amused than angry. But there might still be a problem...

"Avon, did you find any ... anything about real people?"

"The Liberator slash? Oh yes."

"Did you tell Blake?"

"No. I was concentrating. I didn't want someone reading over my shoulder making unhelpful comments like "Good God!" or "Do they think I'm a contortionist?" or "Haven't you finished that page yet?"

"Did it bother you?"

"At first I just found it preposterous. But I tried to keep an open mind, and I can see now that if you view the people as characters in a story, there is some logic to it in terms of character development. Literary logic, that is."

She grinned. "Any chance of you and Blake giving us a demo, then? In the cause of research?"

"You would have to tell him first, remember? And I'm not sure how far his scientific curiosity goes. If I ever find out" - his eyes were hooded and teasing - "I promise to tell you. In the meantime, there are ways of fulfilling fantasies without changing your gender. Yours about overpowering me, for instance." He glanced around the sick bay. "There must be muscle relaxant here, tranquillisers... I daresay, with the right combination, I could be rendered fairly helpless."

"You'd let me do that?"

"Why not? One thing-"

"Yes?"

"Get the palmtop. If I'm going to be drugged, I might want to know what it was like afterwards, too."


End file.
